VW trims Beetle range before it arrives

Matt Campbell

New Volkswagen Beetle.

Volkswagen Australia has delivered fans of the iconic Beetle hatchback a double dose of bad news today, confirming the new model won’t be sold in convertible guise, and the standard model has been delayed until next year.

In what appears to be the first admission that the brand’s range is becoming too complicated, VW says it won’t offer the Beetle Convertible – a car that would have been the third small drop-top in the German brand’s steadily expanding model lineup – because it doesn’t need to.

Volkswagen Australia CEO Anke Koeckler says there wouldn’t be enough volume to justify having three small drop-tops in the same space.

“For the time being we are not looking into [offering the car here],” she says. “So we have three options [the Golf Cabriolet, Eos convertible and Beetle Convertible] but we will not bring three options into the market.”

Koeckler says she has no plans to drop the Golf Cabriolet or Eos to make space for a Beetle Convertible, which would almost certainly sell in less volume than either of those cars.

Related Content

“So far we have a lot of good customer database with the Eos and Golf Cabriolet, and for the time being I’m not looking at changing it,” she says.

However, Koeckler did confirm that a hotter Golf Cabriolet was just around the corner, but could not confirm whether the new go-fast drop-top offered in Australia will be the venerable front-wheel-drive GTI or the all-wheel-drive Golf R.

“We have two options, the GTI Cabriolet or the R Cabriolet. So maybe we have to decide whether to go for one option, and we are looking into it right now. Whether to bring it to the market, whether the market is big enough – because we don’t have a big cabriolet market here,” she says.

Advertisement

“Everytime you have to look into it, you have to make sure you’re not increasing the complexity,” says Koeckler, highlighting the fact the company intentionally decided to offer just one model – the 118TSI – of its standard Golf Cabriolet.

Koeckler says there have been no complaints about that model being the only one available, even though some buyers might want something with more power.

“For the time being, no, not that has been brought to my attention,” she says.

On the standard Beetle, Koeckler says the new model will go on sale here early in 2013, despite previously announcing it would go on sale locally by the end of 2012, to give the iconic hatchback some time to find its feet in the market.

“We postponed, actually, the launch of the Beetle, for good reasons,” Koeckler says. “We didn’t want to squeeze it in in December or the end of November, that doesn’t make sense as we are not looking to achieve volume out of that car.

“It is an iconic model in our heritage, so we are going to start the new year, 2013, fresh in order to present to you the Beetle in February,” she says.